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Team America: World Police
Paramount Pictures

Team America: World Police reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 64 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
8.1 out of 10
based on 38 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 172 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: R

Starring Trey Parker, Matt Stone, Elle Russ, Stanley G. Sawicki, Kristen Miller, Dian Bachar, Josiah D. Lee, Paul Louis, and David Michie

This action adventure from the creators of "South Park" features an all-marionette cast as Team America, an international police force dedicated to maintaining global stability. (Paramount)


GENRE(S): Action  |  Adventure  |  Comedy  
WRITTEN BY: Pam Brady
Trey Parker
Matt Stone
 
DIRECTED BY: Trey Parker  
RELEASE DATE: DVD: May 17, 2005 
Video: May 17, 2005 
Theatrical: October 15, 2004 
RUNNING TIME: 98 minutes, Color 
ORIGIN: USA 

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100
Film Threat Rory L. Aronsky
Laugh hard, laugh long, but just laugh at true greatness. Parker and Stone have done it again, multiplied millions of times.
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100
Washington Post Desson Thomson
Wickedly funny and devilishly subversive. It is satire at its most fearless.
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100
New York Post Megan Lehmann
Who's going to love it? Anyone with a sense of humor: Team America: World Police is hands-down the funniest movie of the year.
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90
Dallas Observer Luke Y. Thompson
Bottom line: It's hilarious, vicious, offensive, thoroughly profane and a joy to watch, just like you'd expect. Be sure to sit through the end credits for a bonus song from Kim Jong-il to Alec Baldwin.
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88
Rolling Stone Peter Travers
A ruthlessly clever musical, a punchy political parody and the hottest look ever at naked puppets -- the first film, porn included, in which a woody is actually made of wood.
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88
New York Daily News Jami Bernard
It turns out that puppets can tell us more about who we are as a nation than the most meticulous documentary. In Team America: World Police, the potty-mouthed, crazily brilliant musical from Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the result is hilarious, shocking and bound to offend nearly everyone.
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80
Washington Post Hank Stuever
This is all terrifically nasty and shocking stuff.
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80
The New York Times Dana Stevens
Clever comedians that they are, they have also rigged Team America with an ingenious anti-critic device, which I find myself unable to defuse. Much as it may pretend otherwise, the movie has an argument, but if you try to argue back, the joke's on you.
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80
Slate David Edelstein
I laughed all the way through Team America: Scene by scene, it's uproarious.
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75
Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
The first hour of the movie struck me as being truly inspired, and I haven't laughed so hard all year.
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75
USA Today Claudia Puig
When Team America works, it falls squarely into the category of guilty pleasure.
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75
Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
I was amused more or less throughout by the ingeniously designed and executed stunt that is Team America.
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70
Time Richard Corliss
The real kick, however, is in the grandeur and detail of the production design, by Jim Dultz and David Rockwell.
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70
The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps
Years from now, Team America will better convey the political character of 2004 than a stack of Time magazines. Staying funny helps even more.
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70
The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt
There is no room for subtlety. Aiming a rude, foul-mouthed political satire everywhere -- left, right and center -- Trey Parker and Matt Stone blow up a good deal of the world, not to mention the egos of many Hollywood personalities
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70
Variety Brian Lowry
Goes the extra mile to piss off everybody -- which includes gleefully destroying renowned Hollywood liberals, literally and figuratively.
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67
Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
You're guaranteed never to have seen anything like it; objectively speaking, it's a wonder.
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63
Premiere Aaron Hillis
Wisely unbiased-but also unfocused, uneducated, and underachieving-which makes for an occasionally hilarious, frequently anemic parody that misses its opportunity to permanently document a scathing critique of current events.
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63
Boston Globe Wesley Morris
Stuck between point-blank ridicule and the obligations of a weary plot. Surprisingly, more than an hour of watching marionettes fight, curse, and fornicate turns out to be as dull as watching Michael Dudikoff do the same thing in one of his unremarkable soldier movies.
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63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey
Give it an A for concept -- a bizarre marionette version of a Jerry Bruckheimer-style action movie; B for its occasional moments of convulsively funny comedy; and D for the politics, for pandering to exactly the kind of reactionary sentiments it purports to satirize.
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63
ReelViews James Berardinelli
This movie is more of a curiosity than a fully formed motion picture.
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63
Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
Bits can be extremely funny. I howled at the ranting, mustard-splotched, wiener-waving Michael Moore.
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63
Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
Egregiously vulgar satire on terrorism, global politics and Hollywood action movies gets an immeasurable boost from its wonderfully designed, old-school string puppets.
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63
Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
The puppets are anatomically correct and politically incorrect. They provide 45 of the funniest minutes I've spent at the movies this year.
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63
Chicago Tribune Robert K. Elder
Team America's strengths are in its musical numbers, especially Kim Jong Il's mournful "I'm So Ronery" (translation: "Lonely"), a heartfelt peek into the dictator's soul.
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60
Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
I know this sounds like great fun, and some of it is, but there's nowhere near enough good stuff to fill the 114-minute running time.
60
Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
Yes, it's inventive, yes, it's out-there and audacious, but no, it's not always as funny as those good things would lead you to hope.
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60
LA Weekly Chuck Wilson
Accomplished yet uneven feature.
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60
Empire Kim Newman
It makes for a patchy comedy that's stronger as a genre-mocker than a political satire.
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50
TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
The result is undeniably offensive and occasionally very funny, but the gags fall flat as often as they hit their mark.
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50
Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
This is hysterically funny in parts, but most of the laughs are raunchy or scatological--always a sure bet when puppets are involved.
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50
Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
The net effect is a barrage of jokes that strain to be outrageous - just as the marionette gimmick strives to be different - but wind up canceling each other out.
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50
Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
Juvenile yet compellingly smart humor.
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50
Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach
Proves that marionettes can be as foul-mouthed and profane as their cartoon counterparts, but not nearly as clever.
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50
Village Voice J. Hoberman
Team America is at once grandiose and tacky, elaborate and deflationary.
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50
Salon.com Charles Taylor
Team America, for all its outrageousness, is the first work from Parker and Stone that I'd describe as a failure of nerve.
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25
San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
Surprisingly, the results are embarrassing. As puppetry, Team America is stilted. As satire, it's gutless and lazy. And as comedy, it barely delivers laughs.
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25
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Like a cocky teenager who's had a couple of drinks before the party, they don't have a plan for who they want to offend, only an intention to be as offensive as possible.
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What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 8.1 (out of 10) based on 172 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Otis P gave it a10:
This movie rocks and the soundtrack is the best ever made.

John J gave it a10:
Its good cos I though it was good.

joe h gave it a4:
The directors seem to revel so much in this movies own absurdity that it never occured to them they may need a decent joke or two to carry these politically incorrect puppets across their 2 hour running time. Honestly the movie wasn't funny, and not in a "this movie's base humour falls so far below my comedic pallete that I could never laugh at the henious shenanigans displayed on screen" not funny , I just mean it wasn't funny. No decent political roasting, no poignant adressing of the issues, and not near the level of (dare I say it) intelligence that south park displays on a weekly basis. While the movie may have used the subtle fact that much of the straight faced scenes in this movie ARE stereotypically accurate of this genre, it doesn't change the fact that the directors seemed to lazy to accentuate these facts and left it to the audience to connect the dots. Only in the music (which earned this movie a four) did I find the more biting, mean spirited satire I've come to expect from these two. It's a pity, because one can see the potential contained within this movie, and all the effort and hard work the artistic crew poured into it as well, but bad writing is bad writing, puppets or not.

Steve W. gave it a10:
Loved everything about it. The only actor that I feel should have been included that didn't make it was Barbara Streisand...one of the most egotistical, vocal self righteous actors/entertainers of them all. Would have loved to have seen her impaled by something outrageous or eatin by a bird or something. Guess you can't have it all.

Gerrick C. gave it a9:
Thunderbirds meets South Park. That is esentially what Team America is. It is very funny, extremely offensive, and totally reeks of South Park. If you like South Park, then you will find love in Team America.

Jabez M. gave it a10:
This is one of the funniest movies ever. While not for the easily offended, it has great appeal for everyone else. The music is brilliant, the political satire is spot on, and the attacks on all types of political correctness are relentless. Just when you think they cannot take a gag further, they go ten steps beyond. Completely over the top and hilarious. Bravo!

Steve E. gave it a4:
Funny-ish first time, but has NO replay value AT ALL. Plus it's too popular, that also wrecks it.

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